Sebelius Called Out as Liar on Daily Show

Oct 8, 2013

RUSH: Now, as many of you know, The Daily Show, hosted by Jon Stewart — and I must be honest. I’ve only seen this show on video clips. I really haven’t watched it. It doesn’t mean anything; I just haven’t. Snerdley’s looking at me like he can’t believe it. It’s not a purposeful thing. I don’t even know where the Comedy Central channel is on DirecTV — full disclosure here. But it has been established that for the college-age crowd and for Millennials and, we learn, I forget the source of this, there was a news story yesterday, journalism students, it turns out, are getting their news from CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS — not Fox — and The Daily Show. Journalism students are getting their news from The Daily Show.

Now, whether we like it or not, we have to accept certain realities here in Realville, and that is for certain young people The Daily Show is not a comedy show. Well, it is, but it’s news, along with Twitter, it is a primary source of news. And we learned yesterday it’s a primary source of news for journalism students. Fox News is not. I’ll find that piece. I had it in yesterday’s Stack, I think. I didn’t get to it ’cause yesterday I was so distracted. It’s amazing, folks, that yesterday’s show even happened, but I’m good today. I’m hunky dory, I’m fine, everything’s cool, we’re in there, we’re all in, a hundred percent and so forth ’cause it’s working now. At least on one of them. It’s working so progress is taking place.

Anyway, Kathleen Sebelius, who is the secretary of Health and Human Services, was on The Daily Show last night, and she lied, and Stewart called her out on it. Now, as much as you might be off put by a comedy show being taken seriously, the fact of the matter is when low-information audiences, and I don’t mean that insultingly, I’m just trying to be realistic here. The Daily Show is an attraction for the low-information crowd. They think they’re being fully informed, and that’s fine. It is what it is.

The point is this. When a low-information audience predisposed to loving Obama, trusting Obama, a low-information audience that has bought the Limbaugh Theorem hook, line, and sinker, when they end up laughing at an Obama bureaucrat’s non-answers and lies, it is a big deal. You may not like that it’s a big deal. You may resent that it’s a big deal, but it’s, nevertheless, a big deal.

In addition, we have sound bites coming up here from other outposts in the media. For example, on CNN The Forehead was on with Erin Burnett, and she said, “Didn’t you guys kind of oversell the shutdown? I mean, it isn’t nearly as bad as you guys have been making it out to be.” Sam Zell, the well-known financier and real estate tycoon in Chicago was on CNBC today, and he said that the market is using the shutdown as an excuse to correct itself. It is kind of falling a little bit. He said the Tea Party is great, it’s natural, and, in fact, it is a reaction to an imperial White House.

And then we have the arbiters of Washington liberal conventional wisdom — not David Gergen; he’s in there, too. But two of the most absolutely flawless examples of elitist liberal mind-sets, Tina Brown and Frank Rich, on Anderson Cooper last night fretting that the Democrats are losing this. Exactly as I, El Rushbo, have suggested to you, that the Democrats are losing this. There is a general unease that has permeated the left. It’s interesting, if you listen to the wrong Republicans, these people are so beat down, even some Republican media — not gonna mention any names, doesn’t serve any purpose. I was watching Fox today. Some conservative media analysts, they’re just convinced the Republicans are having their clocks cleaned and having their pants handed to ’em because they’re the prisoners of the inside the Beltway narrative every day and they don’t see this.

In addition to that, all kinds of people are coming out now and not just giving examples of the Obamacare website not working, but telling us why it can’t because the best people are not in government. They’re at Google or they are at Apple, or they’re elsewhere. The government is totally incapable and incompetent and some of them are suggesting we’re way beyond glitch here. This is not glitch. This is an utter disaster. So we’ve got quite a lot here to impart and share.

We also have found out, Reason.com today has a story, remember that Obama poster boy Chad Henderson and his dad, said to be the first successful Obamacare patients that signed up and went to HealthCare.gov, and they were touted as the first successful sign-ups. This kid Chad, he was perfect. He’s 30 years old, exactly the kind of guy. It turns out they didn’t really buy insurance. The whole thing was a lie. The whole thing was a fraud.

Another story. There are not 20 Republicans willing and ready to abandon the Republicans in the House as Harry Reid and others have been saying. So we really are loaded today.

I want to go back to The Daily Show and the audio sound bites here of Kathleen Sebelius, who came off as ignorant, misleading, and totally incompetent. Stewart did his best. I mean, she’s friendly. She’s from the regime. He’s on their side, but it got to the point that even for his own credibility he was not able to let this go. So let’s start with The Daily Show, last night, Jon Stewart interviewing Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of Health and Human Services. This is the woman with all the power in Obamacare. You look at the law, and of course what we’re dealing with now is not the law that was signed. Obama has added to it, and this is another thing. More and more people are starting to ask — and that’s what this is about — “Now, wait a minute, you’re giving businesses waivers and you’re allowing them to year to wait on their mandate. Why not us? Why not the little guy?”

A lot of this stuff, folks, is starting to snowball, and I don’t want to make too big a deal of it, but it is happening, and I want you to see how and see what you think about it. So here Stewart says in our first sound bite, “Why is it that individuals couldn’t say they didn’t want to do it just for a year like business?” What he’s saying is, “Look, you guys granted businesses a year’s grace on the employer mandate. Why can’t individuals say, ‘You know what? We’d like a year’s grace from having to buy this piece of rot. Why can’t we?'” And here’s her answer.

SEBELIUS: Well, they can. They pay a fine. They pay a fine at the end of the year, but they don’t have to — I mean, they can say, “I don’t want to do it.” The theory is they can’t pick and choose if they’re gonna get hit by a bus or diagnosed with an illness, and for a lot of young folks, they’re, you know, one fall on the basketball court, one auto accident away from a lifetime of hospital bills they can’t pay.

STEWART: Still not sure why individuals can’t delay.

RUSH: She didn’t answer the question. Still not sure why individuals can’t delay. But, see, you can. You can pay the fine. There are no fines for businesses if they refuse. They’ve been granted a waiver of one year from their mandate to provide insurance. He’s saying, “Why can’t we, the little guy, why can’t we say we don’t want it for a year?” “Oh, you can. You have to pay a fine. But then you might break your neck or you might get hit by a dodgeball and you might be,” blah, blah, blah, blah. That’s another thing. We have a school system that has banned all balls. Football, dodgeballs, baseball, softballs, they’ve banned them, too dangerous. Oh, yeah. Oh-ho-ho. Wait ’til you hear the non-Obamacare, nonshutdown, nondebt limit Stack today. I mean, it’s classic. We’re loaded.

So she just said, “You can. You can bump out. You just pay a fine.” And after she went through it all, he said, “I’m still not sure why individuals can’t delay.” And so now here’s Stewart, who is clearly a regime flunky. Well, I don’t want to say that. It might scare and offend 24-year-old girls by calling him a flunky, ’cause they like him. He’s a nice guy. Jon Leibowitz, a nice guy. Stewart is his stage name. His name is Leibowitz. I know these things. Anyway, I don’t mean to call him a flunky. He’s just on their side. Stewart is all for this, okay, but that’s why this is important here, folks. He’s all for this, and it isn’t working, and so here’s his next attempt to get the truth out of her.

STEWART: For those of us who are somewhat believing that the opposition right now in Washington are crazy people, it feels like it’s frustrating to have to defend something that is less than ideal, or is functioning at what seems to be a level of incompetence that is larger than what it should be. So if your only option is crazy town, this is why I think people are like clinging to this idea — but why, like the 30-hour a week thing, businesses are cutting workers’ hours below 30 to avoid facing the law of Obamacare. What do you say to that?

RUSH: See, now, this is classic. We’re the crazies, but we are the reason he knows this. We are the crazies, but if it weren’t for us, Jon Stewart wouldn’t know that businesses are downsizing because the places he goes for news are not reporting it. Now, one thing Stewart is, he knows his audience, low-information people. They’re the, quote, unquote, little guy, and they’re getting shafted in this, all right? And this is not what’s supposed to happen. Obama’s supposed to be looking out for the little guy. That’s why you vote for Obama. That’s why you’re on Obama’s team. That’s why you want Obama to succeed, ’cause Obama’s gonna do great things for the little guy and he’s gonna savage the wackos and the crazies. Except…

“For those of us somewhat believing the opposition right now are crazy people.” We are why he even knows enough to ask this question. Here is Sebelius’ answer. Remember, he says, “Why are you doing this? Why do you have it in the law? Because it’s in the law, that means businesses are cutting workers below 30 hours to avoid your law. Why did you do that?” I guess he just figured this out. It doesn’t seem fair to him. Why are you doing that? Why did you put that in the law?

SEBELIUS: There is absolutely no evidence that part-time work is going up. In fact, it’s going down. The hype was in the recession, it’s going down. And for the first time ever in this country, part-time workers — and there are a lot of time part-time workers, there always have been, there will be in the future — will have affordable health care from the government.

STEWART: There are people that will end up in difficult times having to spend money they would not have spent. Yes? To buy health care if they did not have it, if they did not want it.

SEBELIUS: There are people who will, yes, pay money, and many of them will pay less than they pay for their cable bill or their cell phone bill a month.

RUSH: She is just making it up as she goes here now. I haven’t heard this one yet. I heard $2,500 cheaper, but I didn’t hear less than your cable bill or your cell phone bill. Notice the two things she focuses on, because those two things are of paramount importance to the low-information crowd, their cell phones and their cable TV, their TV, whatever. And TV is becoming less important ’cause they can steal it and watch it all on their cell phones.

She lied all through her teeth. Less part-time work. There’s more part-time work. Seventy percent of the jobs being created are part-time jobs. That doesn’t include the jobs that are being converted from full-time to part-time. Oh, yeah, just lying through her teeth here and she’s counting on the fact that he doesn’t know enough to correct her on it. Let’s face it. That’s what they’re used to. You’ve got a media on your side, you can say whatever you want, and even if they know you’re lying, they don’t call you on it. But most of the time people like Sebelius will figure that he doesn’t know that she’s lying. So that stood on its own, and this is how Stewart ended the show, by concluding that she was lying to him.

STEWART: That’s our show. I still don’t understand why individuals have to sign up and businesses don’t, because the businesses, if she’s saying, well, they get a delay ’cause that doesn’t matter anyway ’cause they already give health care, then you think to yourself, well (bleep) why do they have to sign up at all? Then I think to myself, like, well, maybe she’s lying to me?

RUSH: Maybe she’s just lying to me? Jon, I’m not trying to be contentious here at all. You people understand, I know sometimes I sound sarcastic. I know I’m funny. I’m not trying to be contentious here at all, not trying to start anything. I think it’s great. I’m telling you it’s just more evidence here of what’s happening out there. There’s a transmission taking place that the regime didn’t count on. Didn’t count on this. So Sebelius, the low-information crowd watching this show that is trying to get a job knows full well that part-time jobs are about it. And if they have a full-time job, they’re gonna be downsized and converted so that the company doesn’t have to provide ’em health care insurance.

So my point is when a low-information audience laughs at an Obama bureaucrat’s nonanswers and lies, I don’t know that it means we’re winning, but it clearly is not the norm. You would at least agree with that. I know, that last answer from Sebelius, “Oh, there’s always gonna be part-time workers. There’s less of ’em now than ever,” and so forth. But again, his second question to her about converting people to part-time. We’re the crazies, but if it weren’t for us he wouldn’t know that, bottom line.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: So I checked the e-mail during the break and I knew there would be some people out there, “Why are you picking a fight with Jon Stewart?” I’m not. Folks, it’s the last thing I want to do. I’m not being contentious at all. It was about, “Why did you call him a flunky.” Look, he said to Sebelius, “It’s frustrating to have to defend something that’s less than ideal.” I mean, what is that? He’s admitting, “Come on, you guys. This is tough defending you here. I want your side to work out. I want your stuff to work. You’re making it really tough.” Flunky, whatever. He’s liberal, he voted for ’em. He wants this stuff to all work.

The problem is he’s got an audience and they’re made up of young people, low-information people, and to these people, everything is fairness. They don’t see the fairness. In this sense they’re right. Big Business has been told, “You know what, that employer mandate, you have to provide insurance.” See, Big Business is hated by this crowd, they are despised, and having to provide insurance is considered a just punishment, since Big Business is hated and despised, they’re rich, and how’d they get rich? By exploiting their employees and stealing from their customers, and in some cases killing their customers. This is what they believe.

So here comes this employer mandate requiring them to provide health insurance and health care for their employees. Well, that’s good. They consider that as the infliction of pain and suffering on business, and therefore it’s fair. I’m giving you their mind-set. Big Business exploits, punishes, kills customers, steals money, destroys the environment, all of that, and now Obama just gave ’em a year off and they don’t have to provide insurance, and that’s where most people get it. So it’s quite natural, “Wait a minute, I thought you were gonna screw these guys for us?”

It’s kind of like raising taxes on the rich. “I thought you were gonna screw these rich business people. I thought you were gonna really get even with ’em, and now you’re telling them they don’t have to? But we have to still go out and find a way to get our own insurance?” And Sebelius said, “Yeah,” and that just doesn’t seem fair. Remember, now, to this group of people, fairness, they’ve been taught it, raised with it, they’re governed by it. It’s everything. And this doesn’t seem fair that the reviled, despised, hated CEO doesn’t have to provide his exploited and soon dead employees with their health insurance for a year, but they have to somehow now go out and find it on their own.

Why can’t they get a waiver? And Sebelius said, “Well, they don’t have to. They can pay a fine.” By the way, someone needs to tell her, “You don’t call it a fine now, it’s a tax.” Remember that, the Supreme Court, John Roberts said (paraphrasing), “How could I rewrite this bill to make it constitutional?” Chief justice, “I’ll change that fine and we’ll call it a tax and then say they’ve got the authority to do that.” So you people, you will pay a tax, not a fine, if you don’t follow the law and get your health insurance as mandated.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: It was a NewsBusters’ piece, and they were talking about CNN’s Reliable Sources this past Sunday during an interview with a group of journalism students at George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs. Apart from Facebook and Twitter, these journalism students at George Washington U get their news — it’s what they said — from the Associated Press, which, believe me, the vast majority of the low-information people get their news from the AP. I mean, it’s AP that ends up in all these Twitter feeds and Facebook and Yahoo, so forth. And AP is the most egregious example daily of journalistic malpractice.

After AP, then they say they get their news from CBS, CNN, PMSNBC, NBC, NPR, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Jon Stewart. Not Fox. They’re probably ordered not to.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: We go to Albany. Josh, glad you called, sir. Great to have you, EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Rush, thank you for all that you do.

RUSH: I appreciate that, sir. Thank you.

CALLER: You know, you might think it was fair to delay the individual mandate, since the employer mandate’s being delayed by a year, but that’s not what this administration is all about. You know, people who think in terms of 99% and 1% ought to take notice of this. The reason I would suggest the individual mandate isn’t being delayed for a year while the employer mandate is, is what the upshot is, and that is that there will be a sizeable number of people who get dumped off their employer-provided insurance and will need someplace to go. So they’re gonna go to the exchanges.

RUSH: Absolutely. You’ve just nailed it.

CALLER: Well, if the individual mandate were delayed, they might not.

RUSH: Yeah. Now, do you know why?

CALLER: Well, it increases the number of healthy people who will be dumped into the exchanges and pay their premiums into it.

RUSH: Well, not just that. That’s true, too. But the reason why — let me tell you something, folks, old Josh here is up to speed. The reason the individual mandate will not be delayed is because the more people that the regime can get signed up, that much harder it’s gonna be to ever repeal this. Having people sign up is putting the exclamation point on establishing the entitlement. It’s no different than having ’em sign up for Social Security. The more people sign up, the harder it’s gonna be to take it away from ’em. You are exactly right.

Now, the dollars-and-cents aspect, in a sense, you’re right. I don’t think Obama cares about that right now. I know Obama doesn’t care about the money here. He doesn’t care whether this is gonna balance big debt. He doesn’t care about that, but the people that pretend to care, they will cite that. Oh, yeah, we need these young people signing up ’cause we’re gonna take their money but we’re not gonna pay out ’cause they’re healthy. We need their money to cover the old folks.

CALLER: As an added bonus, it is a redistribution of wealth in that sense because the wealth in the form of those premiums is being redistributed to the elderly and those with preexisting conditions and the poor.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: So the more that go in, the more that happens.

RUSH: Yeah, it’s like reverse redistribution.

CALLER: But Jon Stewart’s mistake is presuming the Obama administration’s trying to be fair about this when it’s actually looking out for these people when it’s really win-win for the administration.

RUSH: Exactly.

CALLER: They hold businesses at bay and they get more people into the program.

RUSH: Yeah, but, Josh, remember, now, you’re a crazy, and Stewart’s embarrassed of people like you.

CALLER: Does Obamacare cover crazy?

RUSH: See, that’s another thing, though. I mean, you’re making a joke, but this regime has proven if you’re a donor, if you’re a supporter, you get moved to the front of certain lines. If you’re a crazy and a wacko, you might not get as preferential treatment. No, being crazy is not preexisting. Not this kind of crazy. Political extremism craziness is not a preexisting condition, not in terms of Obamacare. Josh, thanks for the call. Appreciate it. He’s dead on right.

So while the low-information crowd looks at this — and believe me, one of the points I was trying to make this past couple days and the last week about who’s winning and how we might be, this is what I meant. You’re not seeing any news about this. But these low-information people are starting to say, “Wait a minute, this isn’t fair.” Big Business is hated. Gotta remember, now. Hated, reviled, rich Big Business. What do they do? They don’t pay their employees enough, they exploit them. They kill their customers. They destroy the planet, all that. That’s what these young people have been taught growing up. Here Obama extends them a grace period, when what they’re hoping is for that CEO and all these businesspeople to get punished?

I’m convinced that some of the support for Obamacare, among middle class, low-information voters is ’cause they think Big Business is gonna get punished, and Big Insurance is gonna get punished, because, to them, that’s fair, ’cause all these entities have been screwing them. Well, now here comes a waiver, if you will, in favor of Big Business. So on their own, without having to be coached or told, “Wait a minute, that isn’t fair.” That’s what Stewart was doing there. He’s voicing the concern of people in his audience. So he’s occupied with the fairness aspect of this, whereas the regime, fair shmair.

They need as many people going to those exchanges, A, that’s the fastest route to single payer, number one. Secondly, the more people that sign up, the harder it’s gonna be to repeal or defund this because everybody that signs is a dependent. Everybody that signs becomes dependment on the government for their health, not insurance or treatment, but their health, in their view. Once Santa Claus has shown up, it’s hard to take the toys back. You can’t. That’s what the thinking is here. And he’s exactly right. That’s why there will not be a waiver on the individual mandate and why there never was gonna be one.

Now, the low-information crowd sees this as unfair, and I’m telling you that is something that is marginally beneficial to us, within the bounds of the argument. One thing they could do, if Obama really wanted people to sign up, I wouldn’t be surprised, predict this, but, you know, don’t let ’em stay on the parents’ plan until age 26. Can you imagine? I would love for ’em to repeal that. You think they’re upset about this, man, wouldn’t you like to see the reaction to that? It’ll never happen, for that very reason.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Sam in northern Maryland. Welcome, sir. Great to have you. Hi.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. I appreciate being on. I just want you to know I know a lot of people who were at that Georgetown event, the students.

RUSH: This is the George Washington University journalism school.

CALLER: Right, the George Washington. And they are just incredulous, the people I know. They all listen to Fox as a news source.

RUSH: Oh, they do?

CALLER: The idea that the entire group of people wouldn’t list Fox at all is just an absolute lie.

RUSH: Well, I never want to assume people are lying. So a lot of the students do get their news from Fox. It’s somebody in charge of releasing the results of the survey just left ’em out?

CALLER: You nailed it. That’s a fact.

RUSH: Unbelievable. Why am I not surprised. So it turns out the story is bogus. Let me find it here. CNN’s Reliable Sources: George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs released information on where their journalism students get their news, and they mentioned everything, including The Daily Show, but not Fox News. And Sam here says he knows a lot of students there, and they said they did mention Fox News and whoever released the list purposely left Fox off. Fascinating stuff. Appreciate that, Sam, very much.